Here in you shall find the thoughts, oppinions, views, soapbox musings, and news and reviews on tools and services the aspiring independant cartoonist or animator may find useful.
If you know of Cartoon Network's Chowder, then you know one of the show's trademarks are the funky animated patterns on the characters.
I'd been trying to think up how in the world they're able to pull that off. Actually lots of people are and it's been quite tricky trying to track down any sort of specific information.
One day after watching an episode of Chowder I got to thinking about how I might be able to pull off an animated pattern like in Chowder. Before you run to Flash, don't. Animating this is beyond Flash's capabilities. I had tried it a while back with masks but it just doesn't work.
I did throw the scene and "Soup" together in Flash and I made a "background" pattern with the Deco Tool.
For Soup all I did was make sure the parts of his costume that was getting the pattern were a solid bright green. A color that in no way was going to end up in the scene.
I then set about animating Soup's walk and him going back and forth.
Once I had a decent enough loop animated in Flash, I then took the whole set up into Adobe After Effects. As that was one way I figured they could pull off those animated patterns.
So once I had everything imported into After Effects I simply set about applying a chroma/color keying effect. Also known as "green screen".
As you can see, it worked. However as far as my experience level goes, After Effects is only good for one pattern. Since you set the pattern on a layer below your animation.
If you've never worked with After Effects before it works with a layered timeline similar to Flash, but way more complex.
You could also likely pull this off with Adobe Premier, maybe. The results would be the same, good for one pattern.
So it seems that for now the secret behind those animated patterns in Chowder will remain a mystery. Unless of course there's some technique you can use to tying specific color key colors to specific patterns, in After Effects or Premier. There very well could be, but I've not stumbled across them yet.
Currently I am outlining the things I would like to cover in blogcasts/tutorials. Which might seem odd since I'm still learning my craft. However there are things that I've discovered that I've not found mentioned in books or other tutorials, at least not any of the ones I've found.
I'll touch on these things in the tutorials as well. Well, I guess I'll demonstrated these things in the tutorials. Right now I'm just going to start with one of the most basic things in flash....
SYMBOLS!
Symbols are the building blocks of flash, nearly everything that enters your project will be a symbol. There are three flavors. The two most fitting for animation, at least what I do. Are Graphic Symbols and Movie Clips, the third being Buttons.
You can also place symbols inside symbols, inside symbols. An awesome "feature" which can, and in my case did for sometime, lead to confusion. Organization is an important thing.
Graphic Symbols. Graphic Symbols, are the "least fancy" of the two. However, if you're simply doing frame-by-frame animation, and you don't need the object to do much else, Graphic Symbol is a good choice.
Graphic Symbols, unlike movie clips, have the advantage of playing any animation you do inside the symbol(examples to come) when you scrub or play the timeline. UNLESS! You've added animation to a Graphic Symbol inside that one, then you won't see that animation at all. Also you won't see the animation loop of a Movie Clip, but you will when you test your movie.
A SPECIAL NOTE ON GRAPHIC SYMBOLS
To see any animation inside a Graphic Symbol, you have to make sure your main timeline spans the same number of frames or more.
A SPECIAL NOTE ON SYMBOLS IN GENERAL
Any change you make to a symbol on the stage, will change it in your library, and any other symbol it is in. My book never told me that.
Movie Clips. Movie Clips are the symbol of choice when you need to do "fancy" things. Things such as, to loop continuously regardless of the number of frames in your timeline. The animation in a Movie clip loops independent of the main timeline. You can have one frame in your main timeline and 100 in your Movie Clip, it will still play. This is great for things that have persistent motion, such as a fire or a pulsing light.
Movie Clips, will not show animation when you scrub the timeline. So if you need to see how a symbol is animating in relation to the background or anything else in the scene, don't choose a Movie Clip.
Movie Clips do have the added benefit of being able to apply filter effects to a symbol. Such as glowing, blur, drop shadow. Depending on your needs filters can be a fun effect.
That's a good start for now. Next up will be tweens and comps. Stay Tuned!
So long time, no post. I don't know how I neglected to post this when I finished it. Here is my most recent practice animation.
More simple characters. But it's mostly so I get a feel for the ideas I've had for my animations. I tried a few techniques out. Once I'm a bit more comfortable with my animation set up I'll put together some "tutorials". Or at least share the tricks I use.
At last something animated! Yes it isn't much but it's a start. The last few days, no this didn't take that long, I've been getting the creative juices flowing.
I've been in a bit of a creative slump, or rather an animating slump. Too many ideas, not enough time, and I've not found many good tips for putting characters together in flash. So at long last I've decided to just try out all the theories I have and decide what techniques best help my ability to work quickly.
Aside from practicing effects with the vampire, I was also trying some of my "theories" about symbol composition. I think I'm on to something. As i become more comfortable and confident in those abilities I'll be sure to share those tidbits.
While looking through my stock music I ran across some catchy tunes that I could not remember where I'd gotten them.
Anyhow, long story short I finally thought to check the file's properties and found they were from Flashkit.com I can't believe I'd forgotten to make mention of such a great resource.
They've got music, sound effects, tutorials of all manner and many other flash related goodies. Most importantly IT'S ALL FREE. Or free-ish. I've not yet found any particular restrictions or anything. Seems many may share the music and sounds for promotion. There are a few royalty free services that offer samples on Flashkit.
And there you have one more resource for your creative needs.
The next step in learning how to self publish would be layout and, well, publishing your book! You've now got your ISBN(s) barcode and you're ready to put that book together.
First of all you're going to need some way to convert your files into PDFs the likely format your printer of choice will need. A program such as Adobe Acrobat or another program capable of creating PDFs.
Open Office Is one such program, and it's free. It has a wide range of features, word proccessor, spread sheets, data bases, that sort of thing. And can save you money in that it can work with a lot different file types. I have it myself. However, Open Office is still leans more toward word processing and isn't really that good when it comes to book layout with pictures. If you're a writer it might be something you want to check out, as it can save you having to buy Acrobat if you're not looking to make complicated PDFs.
For those of us visual artists going the self publishing route, it really might be key obtaining a book layout and design specific program such as Adobe Indesign or Quark Xpress.
I mostly do my work in Adobe Flash and/or Adobe Illustrator I have Photoshop, but I hardly ever use it. You can do page layout in all of them. However, you still need means of putting those pages together.
I have to admit I don't know if you could pull that off in those, as I opted to invest in Adobe In Design. I look around for freelance work, and figured picking up a new program would allow me to expand my options and give me the opportunity to make more money.
I'm still just getting into In Design. The "magazine cover" featured in this post. I did that with Adobe In Design. It took very little time to figure out how. You have text boxes, image boxes, you can layer them, put them where ever you want. It's fairly user friendly right from the start. This is coming from someone that knew virtually nothing about things like that. I highly suggest getting In Design if you can.
NOW LETS GET TO THOSE ISBNs AND BARCODES!
So now you have an idea of layout and I bet you know where I'm going now. Once you have your barcodes, with the layout technique of your choosing, you just put it on the cover of your book. That's it. You just have to make sure it's in an area where it will be printed fully and scanable.
NOW FOR THE PUBLISHING!
The publishing part of self publishing is not without it's pitfalls. First of all you have to decide how much you're willing to spend to make things happen.
Now the many many things out there to read are beyond the scope of my blog to delve into. at the end of this I shall provide a few key links you may want to check out.
And so I shall skip ahead to Lulu.com my first choice for publishing. Depending on what your plans for self publishing are Lulu may be the right choice.
First of all they're "free-ish". They do have their basic service, you pic you book format, up load your files, and work everything out. That's just the "in a nutshell" description of the process.
They're basic "Published by Lulu" option is the free one. I think. Their guidelines mention it's subject to change so who really knows. That option is free, because they simply assign one of their own ISBNs to your book and are "officially" your publisher. You're not really stuck to them if you choose to take your book out of print and move elsewhere you just have to give them notice so they can work on bringing everything to a halt.
However, with the basic option you don't really have any real visibility for your book beyond Lulu, retail wise. Because they have expanded features they want you to buy. Like their "expanded distribution" for $49.95. For that then they are supposed to list your book with Amazon and other retailers.
Be Warned!Lulu's Expanded Distribution, does not have sterling reviews what few there are.
Also at the basic level, books available for print are quite limited. I was VERY frustrated to beging putting things together for my book only to look back over Lulu's site and find the perfect size for my book, wasn't avaible to my chosen print/distribution methods and basic level.
Lulu also has their "Published by You" feature for $99. For that what happens is they simply sell you one of their ISBNs. They are one of the few authorized by RR Bowker to do so. You get some better distribution options and book formats. For me $99 for one ISBN was a bit spicy considering how much I'd save saving up for 10, especially because I have other bookable ideas.
If that sounds like something for your project, look into Lulu.
HOWEVER, Lulu pricing is really high. If you're doing a simple book, like a younger kids book I'm working on, to make a reasonable profit you have to set your price ridiculously high.
The lowest I could get my starter price to be was $10.25, which to make a reasonable profit. I couldn't even rationalize buying my own book. So you have to take that into account.
As you probably guessed they're the print service I'm planning on going with now. I've actually gotten mail from real people regaurding my questions, and rather promptly.
They don't have all the printing options I would like, but I found an option that works. Also I gave them a general idea of what I was thinking about the demensions of my book, pages and size, and asked about the base printing cost. On-Demand Printing costs more per book.
The base price of my book with Lighting Source was only about $3.50 So I can set the wholesale price to be a bit more inline with my book and hopefully potential retailers won't mark it up too much.
Now with LS costs for your proofs seems a little spicy at $30, which is mostly for the overnight delivery. However, considering other print on demand services want "huge" start up costs for your books, it's a steal. LS does have inital set up fees per book, but when you think about people having to actually do things to make sure your files print right. And the overall service is $12 per year. You're still comeing out ahead when something like Amazons Book Surge want's $300+ to start.
One other catch with Lighting Source, a catch I'm stuck on right now. You do need to have at least one ISBN as you work on finalizing your application. So I can't do that til I've saved up for my numbers.
All in all though, I'm still pretty confident with them.
And as I mentioned now some key linkies you may wanna check out.
Eccentric fellow, creative, and enterprising. With a pleasant smell of exotic spices and rich leather. I enjoy cartooning, fine beer, and handcrafted wares.
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